Convince me on swapping to Mac please.

macrumors member

I have had PCs for 20 years and always been one of the 'where's the left click' brigrade, but on getting a iPad and enjoying the quality i have been showing a more than a passing interest in a iMac on the next update.

macrumors 65816

All modern Mac mice and trackpads have L and R clicks. The R click does pretty much what a Windows R click does.

I'm not a missionary and GGJ's right -- you'll have to convince yourself. I suggest going to an Apple store or a Best Buy, if you're near one. Filter out the too-cool salesmanship and just check out the machines.

What you can get some help on from the crowd here is selecting a particular machine.

macrumors 68020

Just wanting people to convince you is a pretty good sign that you have already made your decision. What you're looking for now is confirmation from others that it's the right one. Well; it is.

I was a PC guy until 2009 when I finally stopped the PC/Windows cycle and bought my 20"iMac. Since then, my wife saw how great it was and she got rid of her Asus and got her own 2010 iMac. Mine had AppleCare and no issues; her's does not have AppleCare and also no issues. It's a solid computer with a solid Operating System. High quality products, the best customer service, great applications that are either comparable to or better than Windows counterparts; and they don't use as much energy. So a Mac is a mind, space, money, and energy saver.

macrumors regular

All modern Mac mice and trackpads have L and R clicks. The R click does pretty much what a Windows R click does.

I'm not a missionary and GGJ's right -- you'll have to convince yourself. I suggest going to an Apple store or a Best Buy, if you're near one. Filter out the too-cool salesmanship and just check out the machines.

What you can get some help on from the crowd here is selecting a particular machine.

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if lack of 2 or more buttons is all that is holding you back from a Mac you can go and buy any USB or bluetooth mouse and have physical buttons for left and right (and scroll wheel, thumb buttons)... I use a MS Intellimouse and MS actually has some pretty good drivers for OSX that give you all the bells and whistles of their mouses, but the generic OSX mouse driver recognizes most USB mouses and the left and right buttons are configureable. The other excuse people use is that there is not that much software for Mac... and depending on what you want to do that maybe true, but for email, web surfing, working with word, excel, or powerpoint files, Photoshop, movie editing, a Mac is a great choice.

macrumors 68030

What do you use a computer for? You should remember that the iPad sells about three times as much as Macs. The iPad accounts for about (or more than) 90% of the tablet market. The Macs account for only 5% or 6% of the computer market. Windows computers account for more than 90%.

A Mac runs Mac OS X, and that's both the biggest advantage and disadvantage of having a Mac. It's an advantage because, as Apple produces both the computer and the OS, the system is fully integrated and works flawlessly. It's a disadvantage because not every piece of software is available to Mac OS. If you are a heavy user of Microsoft programs, such as Microsoft Office, maybe it's better to stick to Windows - although there is Mac: Office, the Windows version is so much better...

As for hardware, well... there are also advantages and disadvantages. Apple sometimes has its unique approach on doing things. It has pushed Thunderbolt, the multi-touch trackpad and other accessories for their computers. Macs have a great build quality, better than the large majority of Windows PCs - but, of course there are some very well built PCs too. There are disadvantages, though: no choices other than those provided by Apple, meaning you can't put a top-of-line processor or video card, or choose a cheaper computer, for instance.

What do you need to do? OSX is nice but Macs aren't very customizable when it comes to hardware.

If you don't care performance / price ration and able to play around with components and other modding then sure get an iMac or a Mac Pro.

iMacs are amazing for all in one, one of the best (have not come across many good aesthetically pleasing all in ones). Not sure if there is they grey dust display issue still though.

Compared to self assembled machines or machines which you can build online (assembled at the warehouse) there is nothing special about iMacs apart from the OS and tidiness. But as I say, it all depends on your preferences such as:

1. build quality of the computer - that's a major reason why they cost 2x as much
2. OSX - depends on user preference whether you like it better than windows

Go try it out at a store and decide for yourself it you like them.

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Compared to the HP, Lenovo, Acer models that you find in local PC stores this is true. But when you actually build your own machine or simply get it ordered at a correct place, this argument is flawed.

True, great OS but it really depends on the individuals preference.

____________

So the question is, what do you want to achieve? Are you a gamer, like to customize your computer from changing hardware to overclocking or none of it matters and you just prefer simplicity?

With an iMac you can have both Windows and OSX depending on your mood and tasks you need to accomplish

With an iMac you will have less chance on beng infected by a nasty (virus / malware / trojan etc..) although it can still happen so Anti-Virus is always recommended.

Easier Updating so no driver conflicts most of the times and alike

Good compatibility since all iMac hardware has same setups meaning less conflicts with the OS and hardware its self, infact its very low

Good quality display (unless the the dust particle issue is still present)

It comes with decent pre-installed software such as iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand and few others

There are other features too, just not coming to my mind right now (tired)

macrumors newbie

building a computer sucks. who has time for that crap? i'd rather be earning $$$

give me a computer that just works. I don't want to customize it and I don't want to have to search for and download new drivers every 3 months.

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Well that is you, its like saying, well Vanilla sucks or Chocolate sucks because il like Vanilla more. Get the drift?

While you may dislike the task of building or rather assembling a computer others might not and enjoy it. Some may love have pre-built legos while others prefer to get down and experiment with it.

Another example of building cars. While you want to get in, ride it and "have fun" someone else likes to maintain / assemble cars themselfs.

Quote

i'd rather be earning $$$

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Maybe its just me but that would imply every iMac owner earns more $$$ then a PC users.

Its called hobby.

PS:

You don't need to get new drivers if you don't care about getting best possible performance out of your machine, this goes for Macs too or any other system, GPU drivers, flash and alike still need to be maintained but I believe its done automatically by the Software Updater.

Edit:

Not going to change this into the usual "PC vs Mac" though. Each have their own advantages and disadvantages and not everyone in the world has same morals and preferences like YOU (you in general, not the above poster) hence why everyone is different from music tastes, to food and gadgets...

macrumors newbie

Fixing and working around other people's bugs seems like a dreary hobby.

That's why I buy Apple products.

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I assembled my machine and have yet to experience errors. While I did have over 10 crashes that is due to Overclocking. Everyone has a preference and as I have said before, it depends what you are aiming to do. All systems have bugs and always need something fixing or improving on.

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 6502a

I have an iMac and also use Windows 7 laptop. For internet surfing, email and general word processing, I love my W7 laptop. Amazing tool. And, low cost as well. For pictures, music mixing and other multi-media, my wife likes our iMac better. But, it costs 3 time more - compared our laptop. Only you can decide which "tool" you like the most. And, which tool for the purchase price you plan to spend... Just like eating chunky soup, do you use a spoon or a fork. LOL!!!! If wondering, this is the last iMac I plan to buy...

thread startermacrumors member

Good avice and yes i am pretty made up on switching, i use my main computer for surfing and streaming, game play is done on iPad, PS3 and 360 thou Diablo looks good. After going to Apple store yeaterday with neighbour to get his iPad the quality and smoothness oozes from the hardwear. I wait for the new iMac to arrive.

macrumors regular

when you began to use your PC 20 years ago you were at the same stage, you have got to understand that machine, left click, right click, etc, etc, etc
but after that you learned and started 'enjoying/hating' the pc, doing 1million things on it.

now you have got to learn(again, if you want, YOU) however you have 20 years of 'experience' (pc) its not like starting from 0 like the first time, you have a big advantage

it's all about your will, being open or closed (lazy) and give it a try (1-2-3 years, you can always sell it at one point if you hate it but i doubt)

macrumors 6502a

Although my nickname is Chippy99, "ManCMark" might be a better name for me. And on that basis, I should give you the duffest, worst possible advice. Maybe I will after the Newcastle game ;-)

Still, in a more generous spirit, perhaps my experiences may be of interest to you...

I have been a PC man since the 80's, through thick and thin. MS-TOSS (sorry, DOS), Windows 1.1 (oh my god) and 3.1, 95, 98, 98SE, XP, Vista and now 7. NT at work as well. So I guess you can say I have lived with Windows and after some truly terrible offerings from MS, Windows 7 is actually pretty good.

Some while back however, I bought a Mac Mini to use as a media server for the lounge. All I wanted it for was to play very high quality (24bit/96KHz) music through my hifi. I control it with a remote app and don't even turn the TV screen on to see what it's doing, so it really operates as a black box, although it is a fully-fledged Mac running OSX Lion.

Over the past couple of weeks though, I have been thinking of upgrading/replacing my PC and for the first time I have actually been thinking of whether I should get a Mac instead of a PC. So to "try before I buy", I brought the Mac Mini out of the lounge, plugged it in to my monitor and I have been using it as my working computer for a week or so.

I have to say, I do really like it. It's fast and response - surprising in itself given the slow internal disk and low-end processor (I only bought the 2.3GHz dual core i5 model). It's been rock solid, no coughs, hiccups, funnies of any kind. It just works. It's less er "configurable" than my PC, but as it is it's pretty good anyway, so who cares.

But for me the jury was still out as to whether this new Mac experience was good enough to tempt me over from the dark side. Yes, it's "nice" using a Mac, but there are drawbacks (for example applications that won't run, expensive hardware etc). Are the positives enough? Until this weekend I was not sure. Here's what changed my mind, and the crunch point of this rather long post:

Yesterday, to fully understand what life in Mac-land would be like, I decided to also put "Bootcamp" on my Mac Mini. In case you don't know, Bootcamp is the Apple utility that allows you to partition your Mac and run (alternatively) Windows or OSX on your hardware. I figured in the real world, if I was to fully switch over to a Mac, I would need this, so I wanted to see how workable a solution it is.

The whole process was very straightforward and in maybe 1 hour, I had Windows 7 Ultimate x64 up and running. That's the good news.

Here's the bad news. I then spent all yesterday morning downloading and installing the 107 updates Windows said it needed. What a pain. But finally done. The machine is nothing like as responsive running Windows, but it's OK and will run Sopcast (for the footy and other Windows things I need.

Then this morning at about 7 a.m. I powered up in Windows again, only to be told it needs more updates. The whole machine has run like a complete slug and been totally unusable for HOURS. Endless reboots and "configuring service pack" messages and other such tripe. Irrespective of the fact that I, the owner of the damned device wanted to use the thing, no Microsoft had better ideas. No matter how much I tried to stop the update service, it wasn't having it.

Finally, after thrashing the disk for literally 3 hours - maybe longer - I got the machine back in a useable form maybe a half an hour ago. I was cursing and swearing and in a moment of sudden clarity it became blindingly obvious what a steaming pile of junk Windows really is. I mean, who needs all that *****? I just want a computer that works. That does the things I want it to, when I want it to.

So funnily enough it hasn't been my playing with a new Mac that has convinced me I want a Mac. It's been going back to the tripe that is Windows that has convinced me.

I am unsure whether to buy another mini to use as my proper computer (as I do want this mini back in the lounge). Or to get an iMac. Trouble is they are mighty dear, with a 27" and an i7 and SSD. Still not sure.

But I have decided my next computer won't be running Windows. (Other than occasionally, in a separate partition for the odd time I really have to.)

Excellent point: I use a generic mouse with an iMac and a mini, and L/R click is no problem. I hated the Apple mouse cause I had a terrible time getting it to click properly. Personal preference is the biggest factor in using any mouse.

macrumors 6502

- Unlike most (tower) PC's (if you don't build them yourself) the iMac is completely dead silent (at least mine is). I actually bought a PC some time ago because I felt that I couldn't wait for the 2012 iMac... sent it back after 2 days and decided to wait instead.

- How OS X handles applications and files - it's simple and logical. Whereas, in my experience, Windows applications saves things all over the place by default, there could be a global Download-folder, a browser-specific one, there can be 15 different "Document" folders and even applications can be in either Programs or Programs(x86) etc. I'm not good at windows and I'm sure there's ways of simplifying all this and make it equivalent to OS X in some degree, but a computer is a tool that should just work, having to keep constant surveillance over a default system because it's downright stupid in most cases is tiresome.

- As other's mentioned, the hardware quality is almost flawless, and also, you can trust (in most cases for standard use) that Apple provides automatic firmware updates and safety updates regularly and you don't have to worry about it under normal circumstances. I have a Windows 7 laptop... it there's like 40-50 windows updates every 2-3 days... And it wants to restart after every single downloading session - would drive me insane in the long run. Also, not having to worry about viruses as much as you would on a PC is very nice. Not that underlying stress and paranoia a PC brings.

- Time Machine, the built-in back up Application "Time Machine" is a perfect example of applications that are on the Mac that removes things that on a PC the standard user would worry about (again, my opinion), as Apple often says "it just works", and it's true, almost always. (Although Time Machine CAN be a pain in the ass to set up, but when that's done it's bliss)

- The overall feeling that your computer don't have any attitude... or what to call it. It turns on and awaits your command, and not much else, and when you do give it a command, it executes it, and that's it - how it should be, again: in most cases it "just works"!

Compared to a PC: Update this, do this, I want to remind you of this, take a look into that, did you know about this? What about that? Do you want this for that? Update this! More updates! Safety issues - FIX IT! This won't work.. I don't know why, but it won't, ALERT ALERT! There is an error! The cause of the error: Unknown... Unkown error! Updates! This is incompatible, this won't go there, do you know what this is? I know binary but this is just codswallop, what do you think? Updates, updates!

Hm... fells like I just did 5 paragraphs on comparing a car to a talking toaster. Anyhow! Enjoy your new Mac!

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